Pilgrim's Progress: Holy Spaces and Shrines etc

The gap between this post and the previous one has been filled with the minutiae of preparation, moments of joy at reconnecting with old friends because I asked them for money and thinking about the place at the end of the pilgrimage.

Pilgrims travel to shrines, holy places. I can recognize at least three places in my travels that echoed with holiness for me. I think two were hallowed by prayer; two were hollowed out by suffering to be filled up with prayer. The two most obvious were the 15th century Convent of San Marco in Florence and the pre-1959 parts of Lhasa. The Convent of San Marco is a monastery decorated with Fra Angelico's murals in the cells. My friend Marge and I looked at them in awe but wondered how the monks could see the murals with only candlelight. What an unbelievable luxury to have these almost invisible devotions. Marge turned and pointed to circular openings in the wall above the door. Once a day, the sunlight would pour through the opening to illuminate the mural. Suffering maybe not but light and prayer filling the space, certainly.

Lhasa is the center of the Tibetan Buddhist world, the suffering submerged in glancing references to before 1959. There were few Chinese visible but there were surveillance cameras in the market and high posts. The ancient tiny pilgrims performed prostrations like inchworms around the sacred circuit. Giant prayer wheels spun slowly as yak butter votive lamps burned throughout the temples. (My clothes reeked of yak butter after I left.) Both ancient and endless prayer and more recent suffering and loss. In spite of everything, there was a deep peace in Lhasa.

The mystifying holy place was a building I entered on the Plaza Bolivar in Cartagena Colombia. I noticed a plaque by the door but didn't stop to read it. I just wanted to get out the sun. Like many Latin buildings, it was built around a central courtyard filled with lush tropical plants, even trees. I climbed to the third floor and leaned on the railing over the courtyard. It was shady and deeply peaceful. I stayed resting in the quiet and the coolness. I had the same sensation I had had in old European cloisters... much prayer and contemplation. When I finally left, I read the plaque. To my consternation, it read El Palacio de la Inquisicion. I had forgotten that the Spaniards brought the Inquisition with them to New Spain and logically, the center would have been in the first royal port. All I can think is that the suffering of those souls ultimately became peace.

I wonder how Lui will feel. The people suffered a great deal during the civil war and yet by all accounts their faith is strong and vibrant. Mike Kinman pointed out in his Good Friday sermon that the cross is the safest place to be because the worst has already happened. Once the worst has happened, the joy of the resurrection follows. Perhaps Lui has already experienced the cross....

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Progress

Setting out a pilgrimage brings to mind the hobbits' wrenched away from the comforts of their hobbit hole and the prologue to the Canterbury Tales where Chaucer describes the urge to go on pilgrimages, often seeking far off shrines caused by April showers, a sort of spiritual spring fever. And yet, all of them heard a call to leave their homes for the open road which in the Middle Ages could constitute high adventure.

As I think about why I am going to Lui, I think about the other times I have felt a cosmic nudge, sometimes a vague suggestion, sometimes a push. Often it would come from unexpected quarters. It would seem unusual or even outlandish. It was very often expensive and at least half of my friends would question it seriously. And so would I. But during my adventure in cancerland, I learned early to follow those nudges, those whispers of something different from the usual.

A couple of examples:

Leafing through ELLE magazine post-diagnosis ( yes, the fashion magazine) I saw a little blurb about a multi-disciplinary practice for breast cancer patients in Malibu. I was going to Malibu to visit Susan Klein anyway so I called them up. The joint practice included a double doc who was a psychiatrist, a fitness trainer, and a PhD chiropractor nutritionist. Among the three they recommended therapy, weightlifting and a 10% or less fat diet and a regimen of vitamins. It took several months for me to implement all the suggestions. Ultimately they became part of the framework which helped save my life. The consult cost me $500.

The next adventure was a weekend of pancha karma at an AyurVedic clinic which I had read about in Deepak Chopra's books. Once again it was expensive, outlandish to some friends and long distance ...Lancaster MA. I flew into Boston where my brother-in-law picked me up and we drove through gray drizzly March weather to central Massachusetts. As he stopped the car, I said, "Look, if there's an electric blue statue of Shiva in the foyer, I'll be back out. Wait for me to give the high sign." There wasn't and once again I discovered that the nudge had led me onto another path for healing.

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on...

When Stephen Dokolo described the children in his school weeping quietly from thirst, I remembered being taught about the signs of hunger among my class in the school in Roxbury. Hunger, yes. Thirst, no. If children are hungry in the morning, it isn't just they didn't eat breakfast: they likely had no evening meal either. School lunches were the only food they could count on. I felt as if I were back at the beginning of my teaching career. Even further back to the puesto de leche in Barrio Los Olivos where malnourished children were given a super enriched milk product to enrich their diet. Then Stephen asked me when I was coming to Lui and I felt that nudge again.

All the familiar hallmarks: unusual, expensive (although contributions will fund most of it), unexpected (believe me south Sudan was not on my Africa list. Egypt, yes; the Dogon dwellings in Mali, yes; the Masai Mara, yes; a photographic safari, yes) and many of my friends are questioning the whole idea. And then this morning in Forward Day by Day, I found this, "We are to take counterintuitive, costly, joyous steps toward God's new order of life in and through our faith, hope, and love." Amen.

There is now a well on the grounds of Fraser Cathedral so the children have water to drink.

Pilgrim's Progress: Eureka!

Eureka! I'm a blogger. I never thought I'd blog but then I never thought I would be a missionary, either. (Thank you, Beth, for holding my hand through the set-up.)

Throughout most of my life, even during periods I considered pretty interesting, I never kept journals. No journaling during my two years in Venezuela as a community organizer in the slums of Maracaibo and Maracay, not on the trip back by bus through Colombia, Central America and Mexico. No journaling during my nine months of high dose chemo and the bone marrow transplant although it was recommended as therapy. I was living through it all and swearing I would remember every vivid detail. And it didn't occur to me that anyone would be interested in reading them. So no journals of either journey and there are definite parallels.

During the Cathedral fish fry supper, I discovered that people had read LuiNotes and were interested and pleased to have done so. Hmmm!
I read Lisa's and parts of Mike's, chuckling about the extended discussions of the "toilet facilities" and their surprise at it becoming an easy topic of conversation. (All the volunteers in Maracay ate at the same pension, lots of cheap food, beer and flush toilets. As we shoveled in pasta and drank beer with Fanta orange, we discussed the condition of our bowels. The nearest north American doctor was in Caracas so we needed to take care of each other. We weren't missionaries but recent college graduates who believed JFK and went out to help save the world.)

I was really moved by Mike's account of the welcome they received and Mamma Jarusa's funeral. It will be very different for me to be in a deeply Christian third world community. Barrio Los Olivos had been formed by land invasion of the municipal garbage dump. The first time I saw it people were putting up shacks in spite of the burning garbage. We had to pay a priest to say Mass on Mother's Day and bring him to the barrio in our truck. I occasionally baptized babies dying of gastroenteritis because I was one of the few people there who was sure I had been baptized (and because I was the resident gringa.) The people were Roman Catholics but there were no priests. So I look forward to seeing Stephen Dokolo again and the looks on the faces of the priests who will receive the bicycles paid for by the Trinity children's bake sale. They will use them to tend their flocks. And thank God for them and their faith.

I thought maybe people might be interested in what occurs to me as I prepare for the trip to Lui. I keep thinking of the line attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh (yes, that Sir Walter Ralegh: "Give me my scallop shell of quiet" from a poem titled "The Passionate Pilgrim..." So far it's been anything but quiet but I'm holding the image of all those medieval pilgrims trekking to Canterbury and to Santiago de Compostela and of John Bunyan's pilgrim in my heart and mind.
Please pray for me.

M. Seager April 16, 2009©

Advocacy Action to Help the People of Lui and Mundri

Hello everyone,

in recent weeks you might have seen terrible reports coming out of Southern Sudan about incursions from the Lord's Resistance Army (a terrible rebel force from Uganda that, among other things, is not only brutal but uses child soldiers as agents of their brutality) into Mundri (a neighboring diocese to Lui). In addition to the injury and death this has caused, it has also caused an influx of refugees into Lui. You can find out more about this here:

http://sudan.anglican.org/lraattacks.php

http://www.bradford.anglican.org/worldlinks/sudan/index.php?pageid=mundri

The Rev. Dan Handschy, rector of Church of the Advent in Crestwood and part of the mission team that recently returned from Lui, has been in touch with the Episcopal Office of Government Relations in Washington and will continue to relay their counsel as to how we can best use our political power to pressure our government to enforce the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and stop these incursions (there is widespread belief that the Khartoum government funds the LRA in exchange for them continuing to destabilize and terrorize the south).

Below is a letter Dan wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has also included contact information to send a similar letter to Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond as well as UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The letter can easily adapted for use by you and your congregation.

Please circulate this widely and please take this opportunity to raise your voice. Terrible things are happening far away, but they are happening to our sisters and brothers and we live in a nation that has the power and influence to stop them -- or at least give it a really good try. But we have to do our part.


Names and Addresses for letters concerning Sudan

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
United States Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520

www.state.gov

Dear Madam Secretary:


Ambassador Susan Rice
U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations
U. S. Mission to the U. N.
140 E 45th Street
New York, NY 10017

usunpublicaffairs@state.gov

Dear Madam Ambassador:


Senator Claire McCaskill

http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/

Dear Senator McCaskill:


Senator Christopher Bond

http://bond.senate.gov

Dear Senator Bond:


Sample Letter

The Honorable Hilary Clinton
Secretary of State
U. S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton:

I am a member of Church of the Advent, an Episcopal Church in St. Louis, in the Diocese of Missouri. Our parish has a sister parish relationship with the parish church of Lozoh, in the Diocese of Lui, of the Episcopal Church of Sudan. Over Christmas, our pastor and one of our members accompanied six other missioners from Missouri on a trip to the Diocese of Lui, ECS.

Since their return, we have learned that the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army from northern Uganda has been active in the Diocese of Mundri, the Diocese just west of Lui. Many people from Mundri have been displaced, leaving their crops in the field to be stolen or burned by the LRA. Some of those displaced persons have come to the village of Lozoh, our sister parish.

I am writing to urge you to make peace in Sudan a top priority of the new adminstration. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been in place only a few short years, after 21 years of civil war. Anything might destabilize that peace and return southern Sudan to war. This would be disastrous for our friends there. Whatever the United States and the United Nations can do to help keep the peace in Southern Sudan will make an important difference.

Know that this letter comes with our best regards.

Faithfully,

Deep Wells, Deep Relationships

Episcopal Life Online has posted a story about our recent work with the people in the Episcopal Diocese of Lui (Sudan). I think the ELO reporter did a pretty good job with the story. I commend it to you.

Note: I'm copying ELO's text below, but I've added some of our photographs that weren't in the ELO story.
= = = = =

MISSOURI: Deep Wells, Deep Relationships in Lui

[Episcopal News Service] Eight Missouri Episcopalians left family, friends and holiday traditions behind to spend the Christmas season in Sudan. The mission trip was the latest chapter in the companion relationship between the Diocese of Missouri and the Diocese of Lui in the Episcopal Church of Sudan, now rebuilding after more than two decades of civil war. It has also provided the opportunity to develop close and lasting relationships that are invigorating faith communities in both dioceses.

The Venerable Robert Anton Franken, a member of the Missouri team, helped launch the relationship between the dioceses in 2006, a time when there was no running water, sewers, electricity or telephones in Lui. During seven trips to Sudan in the past three years, he has seen a lot of rebuilding in the war-torn country and notes that Missouri Episcopalians have played a key role.

Efforts by members of the Diocese of Missouri have provided a computer and satellite access for the diocesan office in Lui, enabling communication by telephone and email. A $19,200 grant from United Thank Offering will help to establish a grinding mill, which will be a project of the Mothers Union. Missouri also hosted a Sudanese priest, the Rev. Stephen Dokolo, for two years of theological education, enabling him to return to Sudan to teach other clergy.

Another gift from the Diocese of Missouri has eased the burdens of daily life for hundreds of Moru families: the convenience and benefit of clean water.

Deep Wells

Since 2006 the Diocese of Missouri has provided for the drilling of six wells in Lui, each at a cost of approximately $17,000, according to Franken, who worked with Lui Bishop Bullen Dolli to select locations for the wells.

Franken explained that they are "deep water wells which don't dry up during the drought season." He said the wells have ranged in depth from 165 feet to 360 feet, all drilled through solid granite, and that the water is drinkable without filtering.

The wells are also about witness, said Franken. "They are all drilled on church property, but open to the community, so it's a real witness about what the church is doing."

The Rev. Joe Chambers, Episcopal campus ministry chaplain at the University of Missouri, Columbia, wanted to join the mission team so he could make a direct connection with the people who are using the wells—one of which he helped to provide.

Chambers was a part of the 2008 Waters of Hope bike ride, a joint project of the Dioceses of Iowa and Missouri. The ride raised $65,000 which went to provide for clean water making devices for the Diocese of Swaziland and for one deep water well in the Diocese of Lui. A similar ride through Missouri in 2009 will seek to raise additional funds for clean water projects.

Chambers says that Missouri's goal is to provide a well for each of the seven archdeaneries of the Diocese of Lui. That goal will be exceeded by the time the next mission team from Missouri arrives this May, as arrangements have been made for three new wells to be drilled, paid for with funds already given by Missouri Episcopalians.

Missouri missioner Debra Smith said the team witnessed first hand why providing clean water is one of the Millennium Development Goals.

"We saw how much healthier the people in Lui look, especially the children," she said. "And because they no longer spend time at water holes spooning water into containers, some women have had time to enter adult education classes to learn to read their own language."

Deep Relationships

Smith's husband, Missouri Bishop Wayne Smith, told the diocese's 2008 convention that mission transforms the missioner. "That's the great secret," he said, "missioners then scatter transformation among the communities who sent them in the first place."

Debra Smith said the transformation generated through the relationship with Lui has "spilled over" throughout the Diocese of Missouri and that there is "an awareness of the vastness of creation and how small the world really is."

No place has this been more true that at the Church of the Advent in Crestwood, whose rector, the Rev. Dan Handshy, was a member of the Missouri team, making his first visit to Sudan.

In 2006, the Church of the Advent established a sister relationship with the congregation in Lozoh, in the Diocese of Lui. One Sunday, Handshy announced to his congregation that the church building in Lozoh had been destroyed in a grass fire. After church an eight-year-old boy came up to Handshy and said, "Why don't we have a bake sale?" They did and raised $450 from the sale of hot cross buns baked in large part by children. The money was sent to Lui along with a large ceremonial check signed by Advent's Sunday School children.

Upon entering the one-room diocesan office in Lui, Handshy said he froze and tears began to run down his cheeks. There was the large check, framed and hanging on the wall. Bishop Bullen reported that the check is taken out and used in catechism classes as concrete evidence that the Diocese of Lui is part of a larger family, the Anglican Communion.

"That's what this relationship is about," said Handshy. "We now have very young children who have a real sense about what the Anglican Communion is."

Smith said the trip was more than a project, "it was a visit to friends, the only real way we have to check in with some people we have come to love."

"Maybe we go to inspect wells or photograph a chapel or check on the grinding mill progress, but the real purpose in our visit is to see our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ," she said.

Deeper Understandings

The Christmas trip to Lui, including an unexpected meeting with Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, the primate of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, provided an opportunity to talk about the issue of human sexuality—an issue that has caused controversy throughout the Anglican Communion with some repercussions in Missouri this past year.

On July 22, 2008, while attending the Lambeth Conference for Anglican bishops, Deng held a press conference during which he called for the resignation of the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire. He said Robinson should resign in order to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion.

Deng also said that homosexuality is not "approved by the Bible" and "is not part of my culture." He said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan.

Following Deng's comments, a number of people in the Diocese of Missouri called for the termination of the companion relationship with the Dicoese of Lui, some of them members of Handshy's parish, which is an "Oasis" congregation that has been explicit in welcoming and involving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.

Yet, Handshy reported that the Advent congregation was so involved in its relationship with Lozoh that it could not see severing its relationship with Episcopalians in Sudan, despite the hurt caused by Deng's remarks. The parish submitted a resolution to the 2008 convention of the Diocese of Missouri that affirmed the commitment of the diocese to the "work of inclusion of all the baptized in the whole sacramental life of the Episcopal Church" and also affirmed Missouri's commitment to the Episcopal Church in Sudan "despite the sometimes painful differences with Archbishop Daniel in our understandings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

In the rationale for supporting the resolution, members of the Church of the Advent said, among other things, "we cannot afford to do without the gifts we received from our fellow Christians in Sudan." The resolution was adopted overwhelmingly.

On the second day of the trip, the Missouri missioners attended the dedication of new offices in the neighboring Diocese of Mundri. There the group encountered Deng, who was on hand to preside at the service. Handshy said that within five minutes of the group's arrival Deng brought up the remarks he had made at the Lambeth Conference, saying they were "the feelings of my people and I was there representing my people."

Handshy reported that Deng also said that the feelings of his people were not necessarily his own feelings. To Handshy, Deng's remarks seem to leave open the possibility that this own views about Bishop Robinson might be different or more complex than his people.

Whatever his beliefs, Deng made it clear to the group that the Episcopal Church of Sudan is staying in the Anglican Communion, even if they disagree on some issues.

For me to hear that," said Handshy, "was worth the price of admission."

Smith reported that she had the opportunity to have "a really good conversation" with Bishop Bullen about issues of homosexuality, including the belief held by many in the United States that they are born that way. She reported that this seemed to be "new information" to Bullen, who asked "hard and honest questions." Smith said there are significant cultural differences that make it difficult for the Sudanese to wrap their minds around how we see this issue.

"What's important is that we are talking about this with them and that is not derailing the relationship," she said.

-- Joe Bjordal is Episcopal Life Media correspondent in the dioceses of Provinces V and VI. He is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Anglican Communion alive and well

One of the high points of my trip to Lui was discovering that Vasco and Gordon had framed a silly display "check" that the kids of Advent had given to Vasco for the Church at Lozoh. When Deb had come back from Lui after her six month stay, she had felt a special fondness for Lozoh. She asked if we could enter a sister relationship with that parish, which we did. Every week, we pray for the Parish at Lozoh and for Noel N, their pastor. During Lent of 2007, we got the news that the church at Lozoh (a mud church, with a grass roof) had burned in an uncontrolled brush fire. After I had announced the news, a Sunday School kid, Mark, who was eight years old, asked if we could do something. He suggested a bake sale.

Nathaniel and the Sunday School kids ran with it. They baked hundreds of dozens of hot-cross buns, which they sold to anyone who would buy them on Palm Sunday. The kids raised $450. They wanted the money to go for a new metal roof for the Church, so it wouldn't burn again. Vasco and Bishop Bullen were in town during Easter 2007, and went over to Office Max and copied a check onto a three foot banner. We filled it out, and all the kids signed the check. On a Sunday, we presented it to Vasco. I figured he would get back to his hotel, and pitch it.

On my second day in Lui, we went to the Diocesan Office (a two room mud house, with a metal roof, a generator and two computers). Vasco brought out the check, now framed. He told me they use it in catechism classes to show the reality of the Anglican Communion: here's a parish in America that prays for the parish in Lozoh (who in their turn pray for the parish in America). This is what their Sunday School did when they heard about the fire in Lozoh. I have to admit, I was completely non-plused. We throw out these little actions, only to discover they have huge consequences. You can be sure I'll show this photo to the Sunday School kids at Advent, along with the photo of the new church at Lozoh, with its metal roof.

Lui dust

With all of the trucks roaring through Lui while we were there (container trucks, dump trucks, pick up trucks), and the cars and the motor cycles, there was always a certain amount of dust in the air. You could see it settling on the leaves of trees and plants alongside the road. I had a white tee shirt hanging on a line in my room of the mud guest house. When I took it down to pack for our return trip, I noticed a red line of dust where the shirt had been folded over the line. The toes of my boots pretty much remained covered with a reddish-orange patina the whole time we were in Lui. When I got home and unloaded everything into the washing machine, I caught the distinctive smell of Lui dust on pretty much everything I brought back, including the suitcase.

I noticed with some regret on the trip home, that my boots were loosing their coating of Lui dust. Walking through airports, sitting on airplanes, being wrapped under airline blankets against the unexpected cold (funny how ambient temperature becomes relative), the dust was coming off. Jesus instructed his disciples, when he sent them out two by two, that if a town or village did not welcome them, they should shake the dust of that town off their feet as they left, nevertheless warning them that the kingdom had come near. So, if a town had welcomed them, were they to keep the dust on their feet? We were certainly welcomed, we ate what was set before us, and we really didn't have to tell anyone that the kingdom was near -- it was pretty obvious.

The Moru are not all good, and we Americans tend to romanticize people who live simply. That would be a mistake. We met plenty of people with the sophistication to "work the system" and there are plenty of systems to work. It would be easy to get sucked into that good liberal guilt that tells us we should just give lots and lots of money, but that isn't relationship. Walking around the cathedral our second or third day in Lui, Deb and I were invited to sit on good chairs in someone's compound and offered "first pour" coffee, in small shot glasses. We sat and talked and laughed and were generally well entertained. No one asked us for money, they were just delighted that we would sit. There were many moments like that, which helped me to see what interdependence and community really look like. I'm sorry to see my boots loosing their coating of reddish-orange dust.

Safe Return!

I have a note that our missioners have returned safely home from Sudan. Look for a posting soon at LuLuLui.

Thanks be to God!

Arrived in Amsterdam

According to the KLM website, the flight on which Dan, Deb, and Debbie traveled from Entebbe to Amsterdam has now arrived. It's 10:40p here in Missouri and 5:40a in Amsterdam. I'm pleased to know they're making the way back home.

Please keep the team in your prayers. I well remember the cultural shock I experienced when I returned home from Lui back in 2006. Pray for the team -- for their safe travels, their health, and their emotional and spiritual adjustment upon returning home tomorrow. They are scheduled to arrive back in St. Louis at about 4:30 Thursday afternoon.

I give thanks for the marvelous work the missioners have done, and I look forward to hearing from them here and at LuLuLui.

Preaching at Lozoh

Dan Handschy

Deb G and I went yesterday to Lozoh. Sosthen came along to translate for me. Gordon to do some business, John and William to make sure we were taken care of, and Archdeacon Festus (of Lozoh archdeaconry) to introduce us.

The first half of the journey there (on the good road) went very quickly. The second half, on the Lozoh road, was a bit exciting -- bumps and gullies that would high-center a dump truck. The trip might have been easier on motorcycles. When we arrived, we sat in good shade for a few minutes, and as 11:00 approached, I wondered aloud if Church was to start soon. The pastor-in-charge informed us that service had been pushed back till noon, so that people could stay home and chase the birds out of their gardens (away from the sorghum). Evidently, these particular birds take a rather strictly enforced siesta from noon until about three o'clock. So we spent the extra hour meeting the children of Lozoh and looking at the beautiful church. It is probably the prettiest church building in Lui diocese. Concrete block construction, metal framework (the termites can't eat that), and all the doors and window shutters are solid mahogany. Absolutely beautiful. I can't wait to show Adventers the sparkling metal roof.

About noon, I vested and we processed into church. Five or ten minutes into the service, a young woman began to have a nodding seizure, so Deb went down from the chancel to sit with her, and then just stayed there for the rest of the service. She was able to get good pictures and video. I preached on Jeremiah 31:7-14 and Matthew 2:1-12 (the readings for second Sunday after Christmas -- they don't usually follow the lectionary here). I talked about the wise men from the east coming from Babylon, Israel's sworn enemy after the Exile. I spoke about the reconciliation of old enemies in the worship of the child, and in the offering of our very selves to each other. I had noticed in the bottom of the pulpit and offering basket just like the ones we use at Advent (rather more worn, however), and held it up to say that we used two just like this for our offering at home. The church erupted into applause and 'allelyas.' I said it reminded us week by week of our relationship with Lozoh, as we said our prayers.

After service, we had the entire congregation come forward to the chancel in order to take their picture (just as we had done at Advent before we left). We'll have great photos and stories to share when we get home. Like the wise men, we will come home another way -- completely changed.

I won't post again, as we leave tomorrow by MAF, and I probably won't bother in Kampala. If all goes well (and I can't imagine it won't), we'll touch down in Saint Louis on Thursday. See you after that.